Freelance Traveller

This is a revised version of an article that originally appeared on
the Traveller Mailing List in 1995, and on the pre-magazine Freelance
Traveller website in 2002. It appeared in this form in the September 2014 issue
of the downloadable magazine. It assumes that the reader has a copy of
the core rules for Traveller: The New Era.

I am a civilian employee of a police department in a major U.S. city. My
experiences suggested that the Law Enforcement career of Traveller: The New
Era could be improved somewhat.

For the record, I live in a small town of about 30,000 people; my
employer maintains a force of about 40,000 uniformed members of all ranks,
serving a population of about eight million. In order to best carry out my
particular duties, I have become familiar with police operations to the
greatest extent possible. I have also heard about other departments from
police officers who have transferred in, or who have done exchanges with
other departments.

In general, there will be two kinds of Police Departments for the
purposes of character generation: small departments and large departments.
The mission is not dependent on size, but the department table of
organization will be strongly affected, as will the ranks and some skills
attainable by members of the service.

Mission of Law Enforcement

At the lowest level, the mission of a Law Enforcement organization is to
enforce the law, naturally enough. How this is viewed will generally depend
on other factors such as governmental structure or law level (in the sense
of official oppressiveness). In general, though, enforcement will consist of
any or all of the following:

Routine Patrol:

Law Enforcers will routinely circulate through their area of
responsibility, providing a near-continuous presence with the aim of
deterring the commission of criminal acts.

Response to Reports of Past Crimes

Law Enforcers will gather information on crimes committed within
their jurisdiction. This information may not be acted on directly, but
is nevertheless useful to the organization, as it allows the
organization to identify patterns of criminal activity, and allocate
resources more efficiently to prevent future criminal activity.

Investigations:

Sometimes, a crime will be serious enough to warrant a concerted
effort to apprehend the perpetrator. Or, there may be a significant
amount of information that is fairly easy to develop. Law Enforcers will
gather and correlate this information in an effort to identify and bring
the criminal to justice/retribution.

Apprehension:

If there is enough information to definitely associate a specific
individual with specific crimes, Law Enforcers will attempt to take the
individual into custody as the first step in bringing that individual to
justice/retribution.

Table of Organization

Small departments are generally unitary, with no functional separation
(dedication of resources and manpower to specific tasks) nor operational
separation (division of resources and manpower to specific subsections of
the operational area). Large departments frequently have both. For the
purposes of this article, we will refer to a functional unit as a ‘bureau’,
and to an operational unit as a ‘precinct’. The typical small department can
be treated as a single precinct for its table of operation.

Note: Decide on whether a department is small or large by looking at the
number of people served by the department, the size of the territory served
by the department, and the number of people needed to serve the department’s
needs.

The typical precinct is commanded by an officer of rank O2 or higher.
This individual is responsible for overall coordination of activities that
occur both within the police station or out in the operational area, for the
entire 24-hour period of the standard day. In large departments, or in
jurisdictions where there is a lot of crime, he may be assisted by an
executive officer whose rank in small departments is at least one lower than
his (but still at least O1) or in large departments may be equal in rank.

Law Enforcement is a round-the-clock job. Police departments don’t close
down at the end of a normal business day. Instead, the manpower is allocated
to allow necessary coverage over an entire day. Typically, to assure
complete distribution of information in an efficient manner, the Law
Enforcers will come on duty and go off duty in groups. We will refer to such
a group as a ‘platoon’.

Typically, there is one platoon for each eight hour period in the
operational day. Each platoon is listed as being on-duty over a specific
eight-hour period. Each platoon is led by an officer of rank O1 (the patrol
supervisor) who is responsible for coordinating operations in the
operational area for the period during which his platoon is on-duty.

The patrol supervisor is also responsible for reporting his platoon’s
activity to the commanding officer, and for passing on information to the
following platoon about conditions requiring special attention. Staffing of
the police station (i.e., ensuring that a sufficient number of rank-and-file
Law Enforcers (patrol officers) are in the station at all time to take
walk-in reports of crimes and to process arrests) is the responsibility of
the platoon leader, as well.

Each platoon is divided up into several squads. Each squad works a
sequence of days on-duty, followed by a shorter sequence of days off-duty.
Squads work so that there is sufficient coverage each day, and so that over
a long period of time, each squad’s on-duty time is twice its off-duty time.
Squads are headed by leaders of rank E3 or above who are responsible for
ensuring that all information required by the platoon commander is collected
from the patrol officers, and for monitoring the performance of the patrol
officers in his squad.

There are also usually Law Enforcers assigned specifically to
investigations of crimes where information may be developed on an ongoing
basis, or where the crime is serious enough to maintain an ongoing effort to
bring the perpetrator to justice. These investigators are usually called
‘detectives’ in English-speaking cultures. In small departments, they are
usually considered a squad on special assignment, but see the notes on
Detectives in large departments.

Administrative duties may be handled by patrol officers given a “special
assignment” of Staff, or by civilian bureaucrats (unranked clerks)
specifically hired for the purpose.

Large departments may have additional levels of command—for example, a
Division Command may have oversight and data collection responsibilities for
several precincts. Large departments always have a headquarters separate
from a precinct, which has ultimate overall responsibility for operational
oversight and strategic planning for the department as a whole. Large
departments are generally divided up into operational bureaus, as follows:

Patrol Service:

Responsible for day-to-day patrol operation of patrol officers.
These officers are the ones that respond to emergency calls and
crimes-in-progress, and who act as a deterrent by their presence.

Detective Service:

Responsible for investigation and information development of
crimes-completed (in the past). May also arrange and execute “sting” and
under-cover operations.

Internal Affairs:

Responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members
of the service. Responsible for proffering specifications for
departmental hearings.

Information Systems:

Responsible for maintaining computer systems and software (or other
data gathering and storage facilities), and development and purchase of
same.

Physical Plant:

Responsible for maintenance of physical facilities of the
department.

Quartermaster:

Responsible for supply and maintenance of equipment and consumables
required for department operations.

Information Systems, Physical Plant, and Quartermaster may be contracted
out to other government agencies, or to non-governmental firms. Patrol
Service and Detective Service operate “round-the-clock” (but see below).
Other bureaus generally operate only during “normal business hours”.

Detectives are not generally organized into platoons and squads as patrol
officers are. Instead, each detective sets his/her own hours based on the
needs of any cases and/or “stings” or under-cover operations he/she is
currently working on. Hours spent on-duty must conform over the course of
one fiscal year to the same ratio required of Patrol Officers.

Ranks and Typical Titles

The use of numbered E and O scales is a convenience, and does not
generally represent an actual usage. Titles given are common in
English-speaking cultures.

Law Enforcers are divided in a manner analogous to the “enlisted” and
“officer” division of military forces. Typically, “enlisted” Law Enforcers
may be collectively referred to as “Patrol officers”, “Policemen”, “Police
Officers”, “Constables”, and so on, and will include detectives of ranks
labelled with E grades in the table below. “Officer”-grade Law Enforcers may
be collectively referred to as “Supervisors”, “Commanders”, and so on.

The table below gives the rank number and rank titles for all ranks as
used by the New York City Police Department, and some approximate
equivalents in other departments. Parenthesized titles are those used by
Detectives. Where “—” appears in the table, it means that the NYPD does not
use that rank. Some policing services use a strongly military or
paramilitary rank structure; titles for those have been omitted, except in
cases where the title is also found in non-militarized organizations.
Equivalent rank/title is very approximate, and in any particular
organization may be higher or lower than shown.

Notes:

In many US organizations, ranks O3 and above may be considered political
appointments from within the ranks in large departments.

Small departments never have Cadets (rank E1) and generally omit ranks
E3, E5, E6, O5, O6, and O7; rank O3 may or may not exist. If ranks O5, O6,
and O7 are all omitted, rank O8 is called simply “Chief”.

Some large departments omit rank E1, E3, E5, and E6, especially in the
US.

A department that has rank E1 will also have a Police Academy of its own;
a Cadet will be a prospective Police Officer in the final phase of his/her
training, or, in the largest police departments, may be a college student
who is on a work-study program with a major field of study of Law
Enforcement or Criminal Justice.

Small departments never have Commissioners (rank O9). Large departments
may or may not; if a Commissioner exists, it is as a civilian political
appointee setting overall policy, not involved in operational matters. Where
no Commissioner exists, the Commissioner’s role is generally subsumed into
the jurisdiction’s elective Executive.

Rule Changes

In the US, Law Enforcers are generally civil service employees until they
achieve rank O3. As such, officers must have come up through the ranks. Do
not roll for Commission. Promotion should be rolled for regardless of SOC
and world government if current rank is below O2, with a +1 DM for each 2
terms served (count the current term) in addition to the stated DMs and no
SOC benefit. Term DMs are no longer added once a character achieves rank O2,
but at that time, the SOC benefit is added. Thus, a player with SOC 9 who
achieves rank O2 in his 5th term did so with a +2 DM on the promotion roll
in addition to any DM for CON, but no SOC DM is given, even on Low Gov
worlds. In subsequent terms, the character has a +2 DM for time-in-service,
and a +1 DM for SOC 8+, for a total DM of +3. The automatic promotion on Gov
High+ worlds applies once a character is attempting to promote beyond rank
O2.

All characters enter the career as rank E2. Time spent as E1 where this
rank is used is covered by initial training and/or Undergraduate University.

Characters may leave the career and then choose to come back. If a
character had rank O2 or below at the time of departure, roll 2D6 for the
total number of terms in all careers up to this point. If the result is
greater than the number of terms served in all careers, the character may
re-enter with no loss of rank. If the result is less than or equal to the
number of terms served in all careers, one level of rank is lost for each
term not served in Law Enforcement. If the character had rank O3 or above at
the time of departure, roll 2D6 for 10+, DM +1 for SOC 8+, DM +1 for each 2
terms served in Law Enforcement. If the roll succeeds, the character is
reappointed with no loss of rank. If the roll fails, the character may not
return to Law Enforcement.

Skill Packages

Small departments

The supplied skill packages in the basic rules are OK as written.
However, the “Detective” skill package is not used for being “commissioned”.
Instead, roll 1D6 for assignment each term; on 1, the special assignment is
“Staff”, on 2, the special assignment is “Detective”. On any other roll, the
character is a uniformed officer.

If the assignment is “Detective”, use the Detective skill package instead
of the Uniformed skill package; if the assignment is “Staff”, the skill
package consists of Vehicle, Interaction, Charm, Language, Perception,
Economics, Social Science.

On “Staff” assignments, the character gets one Government and one Law
Enforcement contact instead of one Criminal and one Law Enforcement contact
in that term.

Large departments

Roll 1D6 each term for bureau assignment:

Patrol Service

Detective Service

Internal Affairs

Information Systems

Physical Plant

Quartermaster

If the bureau assignment is Patrol or Detective, roll 1D6 for assignment;
on 1 or 2, the character has been assigned to “Staff” and gets the staff
skill package above. Otherwise, Patrol assignees use the uniformed skill
package; Detective assignees use the Detective skill set. For other
assignments, use the following skill packages: